A few points of consideration about this game through the 2 something hours I played through it.
1.) The graphics need (a lot of) work. Pop in is unbelievably all too common in the scene, frame rate slows down quite a lot, very little anti-aliasing (lots of jagged edges), very few character and object models (people, cars, random enemies look mostly the same), and everything just looks generally damp and gloomy. The electrical effects, however, are very nicely done.
2.) Story's not bad, but the karma system is rather confusing. I kill a hundred or so civilians in the street, cause random acts of insane havoc, but I'm still a hero. Meanwhile, as I accept just one evil mission without actually carrying it out, I become a bad guy. Confusing.
3.) The action is intense and enjoyable... for a little while. After destroying the hundredth bad guy with your electrical powers, you'll soon find that your actions are rather limited. Sure, for the first few hours you'll be hooked because of the breadth of freedom and power you have in your hands. Calling down a lightning storm for the first time is really exciting... but after twelve or thirteen times, it really feels repetitive. I think the problem here is because your powers are unnatural, they get old too quickly without more options because your imagination starts to run wild at the possibilities, as opposed to a realistic approach (like GTA), where you don't really expect more than the limits of logic.
4.) AI is rather blotchy in some areas. The enemies have a rather good logic going, but the random street people are like dummies. Blow up a car beside a guy and he'll just stand there like nothing ever happened. The bad thing here is that they literally just stand there staring into space when you do something to their surroundings (except if you happen to hit them of course).
Overall: Variety is severely lacking. In the end, the biggest problem with this game is the fact that you're given this amount of power, yet your actions are relatively few. It creates this idea in your mind of what you can do, but you seemingly can't in the game, delivering boredom after a few hours. As mentioned, enemies, people, cars, and environments are bland and lack variety. Fortunately, the parkour system (you can run up any wall and slide across rails) is very quick and easy to use, and you do feel a sense of urgency in the action when a few dozen enemies are shooting at you.
7.8/10. I wouldn't buy it because I don't feel a lot of replay value in it, but I expect maybe... 80k-100k first week, 1.5-1.8 million ltd. (thanks largely to the cool boxart)
***in case anyone is wondering, my store got the game early or broke the street date (as it usually does with big releases) so i did play the full game***
